He estimated that it might take as long as a week for the Americans to completely abandon their attack on Bermuda and turn their attention back to their own mainland. Korsov was prepared to wait them out, counting on Maskiro to keep any other aircraft from landing for just a few days. After that, the Americans would have already embargoed Bermuda.
He switched the radio transponder over to the preassigned frequency, and contacted the AGI. The master answered immediately, his voice uneasy. He hadn’t been told of all the details — it had not been necessary. But by now he would have some clue as to what was happening, both over the military channels he had access to and local radio reports.
Fine, it made no difference at all. The master would still do his duty and retrieve Korsov from the sea.
And then it would begin again.
“They’re running,” Bird Dog yelled, glee in his voice. “Couldn’t take the heat, could you?”
“And just where are they running to?” Shaughnessy’s tart voice asked. “You think they’re planning on heading out to open ocean and ejecting? Because I have to tell you, Bird Dog, I find that pretty improbable. They’re heading for the island to refuel, and I for one would very much not like that to happen.”
“Where the hell are you?” Bird Dog demanded, a cold feeling starting in his gut. Surely she wouldn’t try to take on half a squadron of MiGs on her own? “I don’t have you in the LINK.”
“Neither do I,” the Hawkeye confirmed. “She’s not breaking mode four.”
“Shaughnessy, you are RTB — I repeat, RTB. Your mode four is down, sweetheart, and I don’t want to take the chance that you—”
“I’m not breaking because I secured my IFF,” Shaughnessy’s calm voice replied. “I’m due south of you, eight miles off the coast — pretending to be a Cessna.”
Bird Dog’s jaw dropped. “You’re my wingman,” he shouted. “What the hell—?”
“Oh, but you don’t need a wingman, do you? Or, at least that was the impression I got in the ready room.”
“I don’t. But that doesn’t mean you can take off on your own and secure your IFF,” Bird Dog shot back. “Dammit, Shaughnessy, you turn that gear back on and get back up here. You know that what you’re doing is—”
“Intercepting them before they can turn back to the island?” she finished for him, her voice sharp. “Maybe if you’d been less worried about the chase and more focused on the eventual objective, you might have noticed what they were doing. I tried to tell you, but you didn’t want listen. So I came out here to handle it myself.”
By then, Bird Dog had turned south, kicked in the afterburner, and was heading buster for his errant wingman. One look at his HUD showed that every member of the flight was doing the same.
Her tail number flashed on his HUD, indicating she had turned her IFF back on. “Catch me if you can,” Shaughnessy said.
War was a hard business. There were always casualties. The trick was to pile up more on the other side than on your own.
Somewhere along the way, Korsov’s original dream of a Russian resettlement of America had gradually transformed itself into a victory of a more personal nature for Maskiro. Certainly, the glory of Russia remained the most important consideration. Of course it did.
Didn’t it?
Yes, of course. Maskiro ran a finger around his collar, wondering if the launch of the special weapons had somehow tainted his own air. He felt odd, disoriented. So much had gone wrong.
Of the twenty MiGs comprising the second flight, only eleven remained. And, of that eleven, ten were flat out running for the island, all at 3,000 feet. Their fuel consumption at that altitude was brutal due to the drag of the denser, thicker air. Only the tail-end aircraft was still above 3,000 feet, and he was descending rapidly. But he’d started too late, and the geometry wasn’t going to cut him any breaks.
If I don’t act now, the American aircraft will be within weapons release range. If they’re carrying ground attack missiles, everything is lost. If the missile discriminator IFF is ever going to work, it has to work now.
Knowing he had the Aegis to deal with and that he might be signing the last MiG’s death warrant, Maskiro ordered all the remaining antiair batteries to open fire on the Americans.
TWENTY
The area around the coast fuzzed out. For a moment, Bird Dog thought they were experiencing equipment problems, but behind him his RIO was swearing quietly. As he watched, what had looked like interference resolved into individual contacts spaced so closely that at extended range they appeared to be a single band of green on the radar screen.
“We got a launch, ZUS-9!” his RIO shouted. The warble of the ESM cut him off, confirming his conclusion.
The missiles fired from the trucks were far less accurate at long range. Their primary use was against ground attack aircraft, and they were deadly at short ranges due to their exceptionally short reaction time. But they weren’t as fast as the missiles carried on the MiGs, and thus were easier to evade.
But they don’t need to kill us, do they? Just keep us away. They’re accurate enough for that.
Or are they? I’m faster, better reflexes, all that, right? And they are limited on turns. I remember that from the briefing. So, if I get close and don’t give them any time to react, they won’t be that difficult to avoid, will they?
“Listen up,” Bird Dog ordered. He described his plan over tactical, talking over the expressions of disbelief he heard coming from the other aircraft as he explained the dynamics of what he proposed. He concluded with, “Not everybody can hack it, I know that. So, I’m leaving it up to the RIOs. You know who you’re with — if you trust your pilot enough to try it, join me.”
“Piece of cake, Bird Dog,” Shaughnessy said, her voice lazy and almost amused. “The defenses are so slow and clumsy it’s like trying to beat you up the ladder to the flight deck. Just stay loose, watch what they’re doing, and you can turn inside every time.” As Bird Dog watched, Shaughnessy’s tail number entered the green blur around the island, dancing through a storm of enemy missiles.
“If she can do it, so can I,” one voice said.
“Me, too.” Without exception, they were all in.
Bird Dog could see Shaughnessy below him, maybe 10,000 feet below him, a silver spec trailing con trails as it streaked across the whitecapped ocean. She was alone, violating the first commandment of fighter combat — never leave your wingman. Nevertheless, she had, and Bird Dog was seriously pissed.
But not pissed enough to abandon her.
Time seemed to slow down, even as his mind raced. The missiles rising up from the ridge running down the center of the island were creeping up to the sky, moving so slowly that he could see every detail of their shape. It seems like he had forever to evade them, but he knew that overconfidence killed at least as many pilots as enemy fire.
With the Tomcat moving at almost Mach 1 and a missile closing at slightly less than that, reaction time was measured in seconds. And there was no telling how many warheads they had on each missile. No, it was like a picket fence that stood between him and Shaughnessy, even assuming that the seeker head on the missiles had a lock on her.